1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an electro-optical device substrate used for an electro-optical device, such as a liquid crystal device, to an electro-optical device including the electro-optical device substrate, and an electronic apparatus, such as a liquid crystal projector, including the electro-optical device.
2. Related Art
An electro-optical device, such as a liquid crystal device, includes a thin-film transistor (TFT) array substrate in which various lines, such as data lines, scanning lines, and capacitor lines, and various electronic elements, such as TFT transistors, are provided in an image display area of the electro-optical device and a counter substrate. The TFT array substrate and the counter substrate are disposed so as to face each other with an electro-optical material layer, such as a liquid crystal layer, therebetween. With this configuration, when parallel light is incident to the electro-optical device, only the amounts of light corresponding to the aperture ratios of pixels among the total amount of light can be used.
Thus, in the related art, a microlens array including microlenses corresponding to pixels is provided in a counter substrate or a microlens-array plate is attached to the counter substrate. By using such microlenses, light that travels toward non-aperture regions, which are regions other than aperture regions of the pixels, is condensed for individual pixels and is guided to the aperture regions of the pixels when penetrating through an electro-optical material layer. Thus, such an electro-optical device is capable of providing a bright display.
Such a microlens-array plate is manufactured by gluing, using an adhesive made of photocurable resin, a cover glass to one side of a transparent plate member including a recessed portion and a protruding portion that define a curved surface of each of the microlenses. For example, a technology for maintaining a predetermined thickness of an adhesive used for a microlens-array plate is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2006-133261.
In the case of using the microlens array described above, however, it is practically difficult to accurately control the configurations of microlenses, such as the sizes and curvatures of the microlenses. There is a technical problem in that it is difficult to form microlenses having desired configurations. Thus, a desired light-condensing ability may not be achieved, resulting in a deterioration in display quality. As a result, the manufacturing yield may be reduced, resulting in a reduction in the reliability of the apparatus.